I am a 41-year-old father of 4. My wife and I have been married for over 15 years. My son is 19 and my three daughters are 14, 11, and 3. For just about our entire marriage I have been either working two jobs or at a minimum a job and a side hustle. People make comments to me all of the time about not understanding how or why I am always hustling. I will say that even though I am usually working more than I am playing when I look at my family, I am the happiest dad in the world.
What is my Dream as a Dad
My dream as a dad is very simple. First, I want my kids to do better than I have done in life. This is not just a financial expectation but at all levels of life. I feel like all the work I have done was to give them a better chance than I had to be a successful person. This means if they choose to be a businessperson then they should be that much better of a businessperson as I was. If they want to have a family, I am hoping I have shown them what being a good husband and father should be. Then they can take what they have learned from me and do it even better.
I don’t want to say the second part of this because that makes it sound less important than the first part of my dream. So I will say the alpha part of my dream as a dad is to give my family a great husband. I know that sounds like I wrote it incorrectly. I used the word husband over the word father on purpose. I tried to be the best husband I can to my wife because she chose to trust me and give her life to being my wife, but it is also important to my family that I am a good husband. There are many people who have no idea what a family can be and I want my kids to grow up seeing it.
What Did I learn From My Own Parents That Helped Me Understand my Dream
I will not write the story I hear so often about the broken childhood and all the negatives that I had to overcome. In truth, I look back on my own childhood and I have happy memories. My father was tough on me when it came to some things and his job made it so he could not be around for a lot of things. My mom was a free spirit who did her best. In the end, they did the best job they could, and I think I turned out alright.
What I learned though was this:
-You need to be there; I needed to try and be there for as many of my kids’ events as I could. Even when working two jobs I have tried as hard as possible to be at my kids’ events. Even if this meant I would leave one job an hour early and have to work 2 extra hours at the second job to make up for it.
-Keep the disagreements between parents, between the parents; I can remember when I had to see fights between my parents and the spouses (they were divorced from each other) as a kid in the family when the parents fight in front of them it makes the kids part of the fight and they have to feel the emotions. So, I try to always keep disagreements between me and my wife away from the kids.
-Know the big picture and help your kids see the dream; I don’t remember talking to my parents much about the details of what they dreamed I would do. The only thing I remember being told is like Robert Kiyosaki always says, go to school, get a good job, and buy a house. Well, I did all of that and realized it put me in a hole that I have been digging out of for a long, long time. So, it is important to talk to your kids about what your dream for them is. As for me, I have been helping my son on his path and he is aligned with my dream for him. He has a four-year plan and is doing a great job of getting there. So talk to your kids and teach them about what your dream is and get aligned with them so that the dream comes true.
-The opposite of love isn’t hated it’s selfishness; as a father, you need to realize it isn’t about you anymore. So, I have learned not to be selfish. I would rather give my kids and wife everything I can and not try to look out for myself. To me when fathers start trying to put themselves first over their family, they are teaching such a bad thing. I love seeing my family have everything I can possibly give them. At the end that is all the reward I need.
-A father’s job is to be the Rock; Over the past 15 plus years what I have learned is a father needs to be solid. The family needs to know that I am there for them, and I can handle anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s true they need to believe it. So, when a father is solid and the foundation of the family, they don’t have to be worried and stressed they can lean on him. This is how I help the family and it’s a major part of my dreams as a dad. I want my home to be safe and I want my family to know they have a rock in their corner that can handle anything.
Conclusion
Not all fathers will have the same dreams for their families, but I am sure that we can all agree if our kids grow up happy and do better than we did in life, then we succeeded in our jobs as dads. No matter how good or bad your childhood was you should have learned from it. You can take the good things and do them better. Then take the bad things and do them differently. Remember you and your wife are a team and there are two parts to a family. There is the husband and wife part and then there is the parent part. These two things need to be kept separate sometimes. For example, fighting about money or other common discussions in a marriage doesn’t need to be done in front of kids. One of the worst things I could ever hear is my kid thinking that it’s their fault mom and dad are fighting about money.
As a dad have a great dream for your family. Don’t keep it from them, share it. Let them know how you see the future generations. Teach them where their family came from the good and bad. Show them how far you have come to take what your parents gave you and do better. Let them see how they can have an even better life than you and then in turn give their kids that much better of a chance. Lastly don’t go down the path of selfishness, instead, stick with love and give everything to your family that you possibly can. The rewards will be better than any material item you could have gotten.
